The United States Patent and Trademark Office has upheld a key Apple multitouch patent, the so called ‘949 or Steve Jobs patent, which basically patents all multitouch gestures.

I believe that Sony, Nokia, and a few others have taken a license from Apple for using this technology, and they should be ok, but this is a serious setback for Google, Motorola, Samsung, et al, and it appears to be a final ruling.

The most interesting economic information is that Motorola, according to the brief, “demand[s] that Apple take a license at a rate that was more than 12 times what Motorola was charging other licensees for the same technology–a rate that was unfair, unreasonable, and decidedly discriminatory”. The public version of the brief obviously does not contain any such thing as a list of various Motorola license deals. But it becomes clearer and clearer that Motorola’s 2.25% demand is unrealistic and not supported by the deals it actually concluded. Apple says that the demand, corresponding to about $12 per iPhone, “was more than 12 times what Apple was already paying to license Motorola’s SEPs”, apparently referring to what Apple was paying indirectly through the use of Motorola-licensed baseband chips.

From Apple’s opening brief in this appeals case:

Motorola has sued Apple in various forums for infringement of eight SEPs (presumably, its eight strongest SEPs) and is batting 0-for-8 in establishing liability in U.S. actions.

Page expects his employees to create products and services that are 10 times better than the competition

Ok…name one.

…it’s hard to find actual examples of really amazing things that happened solely due to competition. How exciting is it to come to work if the best you can do is trounce some other company that does roughly the same thing?

You may say that Apple only does a very, very small number of things, and that’s working pretty well for them. But I find that unsatisfying.

125 billion. In cash. And counting. And they work. As advertised. Much like the Cube…oh wait…

A great deal of my effort is spent making sure that we have a great user experience across our core products. Whether you’re in Chrome or Search or Gmail, it’s just Google, with one consistent look and feel. It’s not a good user experience if there are 50 different ways to share something. That requires integration.

See what I mean? RDF. He’s talking like he is the CEO of Apple.

On Steve Jobs’ “thermonuclear” comment:

How well is that working?

12.5 billion for Motorola. Not a single substantial case won against Apple, but many lost. ITC/EU investigations. FTC pledge to withdraw all FRAND/SEP litigation. Countless failures in court for Google and it’s partners. I’d say it’s working pretty well Larry….

Google, having been under investigation by the US FTC, has agreed to license it’s SEP-patents under FRAND terms to it’s competitors. Furthermore, Google will not seek injunctions to block rivals from using patents essential to key technologies.

Apple has announced that it has settled all patent litigation with HTC. All lawsuits will be dropped, and the licensing deal is for 10 years, covering all current and all future patents by the two companies.